I'm wondering also if longer-distance undergrounding in Cali would be a bad idea due to all of the possible earthquake faults that would be crossed.

They can add flexible loops in the conduit that counteract changes in length. If the ground moved enough to break an underground cable the same would apply to overhead cables, depending on the time of year. Overhead cables expand and contract with temperature.

Another thing to consider are the ground conditions. In places where there are only a few inches of soil over solid rock it's almost impossible to lay underground cables or pipe (of any size) without digging trenches. From what I've seen in many places where the firs are there is a lot of fragmented rock and bed rock very close to the surface, which may make over-ground distribution the only solution.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

In urban areas of the UK, household and light industry distribution cables have been undergrounded for decades (not so for rural and agricultural lines, which run overground on segregated poles, kept well apart from telecommunications operator interference).

In the 26 years I've lived in this house, I have just once had to call the distribution company for a power loss - that turned out to be a local underground cable fault. It was one New Year's Day (public holiday), but they still turned out and fixed it, on a foul wet and cold day.

Although that might have been an expensive dig, in my experience I'd guess that the reliability and longer MTBF for underground cabling is probably cheaper to maintain in the long run. It's only the initial deployment (capital investment) which ought to frighten the bean-counters.

Another thing to consider are the ground conditions. In places where there are only a few inches of soil over solid rock it's almost impossible to lay underground cables or pipe (of any size) without digging trenches. From what I've seen in many places where the firs are there is a lot of fragmented rock and bed rock very close to the surface, which may make over-ground distribution the only solution.

They also don't put cables underground where there is constant movement such a peat bogs. Nearly all cables in the Shetland Isles are overhead, where they are damaged every winter by swans flying in from Siberia. But there are very few trees there.

Which is why the cost/benefit analysis will have to be carried out separately for each climate/environment/distance regime. I'd imagine that in some areas, the local insect or beaver population would be a contra-indicator for wooden poles.

One of my colleagues has a power line (to another property) running over his land. Recently the grid company approached him requesting permission to bury the cable, which he was quite happy with until they told him it would cost HIM thousands of pounds to do so. Cheeky bar stewards, they want to bury the cable, which does not supply his property, and charge him for doing so. Guess what he said (and remember he's an engineer).

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

There are many issues. In some areas of my city, all power is underground, business districts. In some areas, it is all overhead, single family residential. The city wants to put all its trunk lines underground. It also realizes it can't force a property owner to switch from an overhead service to an underground service, unless the city pays for it and they aren't. So the plan isn't to switch houses, it is to switch the everything up to the line that feeds the houses that runs down the street, usually in the backyards. At some point they will have enough underground that they can begin to put those lines down the street underground. Then it is a waiting game, how long before the owner needs to pull a big building permit and the service can be switched. But this is urban/suburban California. Rural California is another story. When service drops are miles apart along the lines, there are no streets near the utility easements things get complicated and expensive. When the total power that can be billed for will never cover the cost of putting the wires underground?

I live in a desert rural area, except for the park and any like it in Barstow CA, all power is on poles here and SCE has been replacing some poles in the area for the last few years.

Some parks have been updating their infrastructure.

Here the old 1966 infrastructure is obsolete according to the HCD and the HCD has been asking the park to upgrade since without the upgrade expansion can't happen now.

And new or within 10yrs of the current year manufactured homes are 100Amps and this park has 60Amp Stubs and 60Amp Sub Meters and both have breakers in them.

The new equipment being installed elsewhere can go up to 200amps on the Stub.

I say "new or within 10yrs of the current year manufactured homes" since it would take an ok from the County Planning Dept to allow anything older in the area, I checked.

Anything older than June 1976 is a mobile home or even a trailer, any home newer than June 1976 is a manufactured home and has to meet the preemptive HUD building code and is FHA compatible, anything before this is subject to state building codes and can not get an FHA loan.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

I'm still with you all... Yesterday, it was announced that Danville was removed from the list of potential outage areas.

Since the original message stated "Wednesday morning, Midnight..." I NOT ONLY turned off my computers, BUT also flipped the SurgeArrest Strip switches to prevent spikes upon power restoration. So, Tuesday night to Wednesday morning, my Hackintosh and my Mac Pro 5,1 were off.

As to the Solar info that I stated, it was described to me in this way... "PG&E does NOT allow people to go 'Off Grid'. In this light, since Solar is 'Always On', IF the grid would ever to go down THEN Solar Power Systems would be turned off, too. This is BECAUSE PG&E DOES NOT want ANY power to be feeding back on the Grid since maintenance crews would be working on said grid." IF PG&E WOULD allow people to go COMPLETELY 'Off Grid, then a Meter would NO LONGER be necessary, and NO MATTER WHAT, the Solar Power System would ALWAYS be 'On'.

IF the above is wrong, and Solar IS allowed to run REGARDLESS of 'On' or 'Off Grid' then I stand corrected. I had heard the above description several years ago, and reconfirmed this with a friend in Woodland, whom told me this was still true. His Solar Power System was installed two years ago.

I'm glad to still be with you all. I hope those without power are safe, and will have power restored soon.


TL

That's where the isolation switch comes into play...keeps your solar from energizing the line or feeding into the circuit down the line..that way you won't fry a repairman. I don;t have solar, but I do have a propane powered whole house generator...when we lose power, the generator circuit isolates the house and provides power to it. When power is restored, I have to manually switch back to "shore power" and let the generator shut off (it will on it's own). Anyhoo, that's how my system works...Solar would be no different...and PG&E cannot cut your solar power.

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Undergrounding transmission lines is very cost prohibitive. The reason the are up high is in part RF radiation but mainly heat. The put out a lot of heat. I had a project that was crossed by transmission lines. I wanted to underground them, about 1/2 mile would have cost me $20 million.
Remember these?


I would have had to create an oil filled chamber to run the conduit and install cooling towers every 250 feet.

The reason the are up high is in part RF radiation but mainly heat.

I think that the primary reason is that being that high up, the air gap is an effective insulator, so the conductors are a bare un-insulated aluminum alloy cable with a steel core. This is why they are so cost-effective compared to underground or near-ground conduit where very heavy insulation is a necessity and the conductor must be surrounded and supported at all points.

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The reason the are up high is in part RF radiation but mainly heat.

I think that the primary reason is that being that high up, the air gap is an effective insulator, so the conductors are a bare un-insulated aluminum alloy cable with a steel core. This is why they are so cost-effective compared to underground or near-ground conduit where very heavy insulation is a necessity and the conductor must be surrounded and supported at all points.

If you put the conductors too near each other you start getting some really nasty magnetic inductive effects and that wastes energy by making heat.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/12/how-pges-power-shutdown-threatened-a-nasa-mission/

Eric had a payload on that. He was keeping us informed on his FB page.

Nah, Eric isn't on Facebook,

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

The reason the are up high is in part RF radiation but mainly heat.

I think that the primary reason is that being that high up, the air gap is an effective insulator, so the conductors are a bare un-insulated aluminum alloy cable with a steel core. This is why they are so cost-effective compared to underground or near-ground conduit where very heavy insulation is a necessity and the conductor must be surrounded and supported at all points.

If you put the conductors too near each other you start getting some really nasty magnetic inductive effects and that wastes energy by making heat.

Youse guys really need to rake your forest floors!

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

They need to keep their transmission line right-away cleared or raked if you prefer. Total negligence on PG&E's part. No other state is having these kind of issues. I worked with a few former PG&E line hands and they had nothing good to say about PG&E, why they were up here working with me.

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...

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/12/how-pges-power-shutdown-threatened-a-nasa-mission/

Eric had a payload on that. He was keeping us informed on his FB page.

Nah, Eric isn't on Facebook,

I have a friend whose name is Eric Korpela, so yeah He is.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

People are wanting to convert PG&E into a coop that is owned by the customers.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

yes. I just had dinner with 2 of the directors. They are aware of that.

yes. I just had dinner with 2 of the directors. They are aware of that.

I assume they were doing the Trump business model, milk every penny, wait 90 days and then declare BK and walk away leaving the bag for others.

yes. I just had dinner with 2 of the directors. They are aware of that.

I assume they were doing the Trump business model, milk every penny, wait 90 days and then declare BK and walk away leaving the bag for others.

No the PUC would not allow them to pay themselves a bonus. Neither would the BK court. Remember they are already in BK.